While victims advocates are heartened by colleges' efforts to educate students on rights and accurately report incidents, many say campuses should take more action.

Michael Gagne Herald News Staff Reporter @HNMikeGagne

One in five.

That’s the number of women who, according to survey data from recent years, say they have been the victims of sexual assault or attempted sexual assault during their college years.

It’s a number that has not improved much from when colleges first began collecting data and reporting campus crime statistics, including rape, under the federal Campus Security Act, which was enacted more than 20 years ago and later renamed the Jeanne Clery Act.

In fact, campus statistics don’t seem to come close to reflecting the actual number of sexual assaults that occur each year. They remain underreported by victims, experts say.

Take the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth as an example. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Education, the number of sexual assaults reported by students between 2010-12 was 11.

But David Milstone, the school’s vice chancellor for student affairs, said he would guess if all crimes against women were reported, the number could be closer to 200 over the same span.

Milstone is one of many officials on college campuses looking at how to address the ongoing problem on campuses nationwide. The issue has recently been placed under the microscope by President Barack Obama's administration — which, earlier in the year, appointed a task force to look into crimes against women — and the Department of Education, which recently announced changes to the Clery Act and what crimes will be reported that will go into effect as soon as November of this year.

Rights to a safe education

In Amherst in 2011, Dana Bolger was a sophomore in college when she became a victim of sexual violence.

Bolger, who is now 23, said she was raped that year. The perpetrator, a student at the same school, then began to stalk and harass her.

They were both students Amherst College, a small, highly selective liberal arts college with 1,700 students. The town of Amherst itself has a population of more than 30,000. The University of Massachusetts’ Amherst campus is also located there.

As a student on a small campus, it soon became difficult for Bolger to find safety.

Her assailant became nearly unavoidable. She would go the campus’s one dining hall for breakfast. He would be there “eating cereal one table over,” Bolger said.

When she sought help from college officials, Bolger said, they refused to pursue disciplinary action the perpetrator or offer her support. One dean advised her “to take a semester off, get a job at Starbucks ... come back after he graduated.”

“I remember spending hours thinking about how to get to the dining hall, to the library — on top of working on papers,” Bolger said.

That’s when she decided to take a semester off.

It was only when she went to a pro-bono attorney that she learned of her rights: Under Title IX of the federal Educational Amendments of 1972, no person, male or female, could be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.

“I didn’t know it was against the law,” Bolger said of the way the situation was handled.

Title IX is far more commonly known as having created more equal competitive athletic opportunities for women in college.

Bolger joined a survivors group and soon found other women, and some men, who were also victims of sexual assault on their college campuses. It’s a widespread problem, she found.

“This is not just an Amherst situation,” she said. “Survivors are encouraged to take time off, while perpetrators are supported.”

Bolger helped co-found a campaign called Know Your IX, which is dedicated to informing survivors of their rights to continue their education. The campaign spreads its message through social media, blogging and other channels.

As a result of such campaigns, as well as increased pressure from Washington to improve the resources offered to survivors, campuses are changing.

In addition to an expanded Clery Act, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights is using Title IX to look at how colleges respond to reports of on-campus sexual assaults. As of June 19, the office was investigating 64 college campuses over how they handled the reports.

Seven of those 64 campuses are in Massachusetts: Amherst College, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Boston University, Emerson College, Berklee College of Music, Harvard College and Harvard University Law School.

Though the schools are being investigated, they won't necessarily be found guilty of wrongdoing, as Boston University spokesman Colin Riley pointed out about the school’s investigation.

“We are cooperating fully with OCR in its investigation and are always open to improving the manner in which we respond to any complaint of sexual misconduct,” Riley said. The college has also recently improved its support network and offers counseling services “to all students affected by sexual misconduct.”

Institutions found in violation of Title IX do not necessarily face fines or risk losing federal funding, though those are options available to the U.S. Department of Education, according to spokeswoman Jane Glickman.

Glickman said via email that OCR is “required by law to attempt to reach voluntary compliance through an agreement with the institution to remedy the situation.”

Stripping an institution of federal funding would be a step taken if it “refuses to comply voluntarily and remains unwilling to negotiate an agreement,” Glickman said.

But OCR has not had to resort to terminating funding, Glickman said.

“In the vast majority of cases where OCR identifies a civil rights law violation, OCR reaches an agreement with the institution to remedy the situation without having to withhold money,” she said.

Campuses taking action

Even if the change is being spurred mostly by pressure from outside forces, like the Department of Education and activist groups like Know Your IX, post-secondary institutions are taking action. For most, it’s a collaborative effort among various departments on campus: public safety, health services, student affairs and others.

Many schools, including Amherst, Harvard and others, have hired employees who serve specifically as Title IX coordinators and victim advocates. They investigate allegations, as well as train students and staff on sexual respect and how to report violence.

At smaller schools, like Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island, existing staff members have assumed advocacy roles. They have received additional training on sexual assault and trauma, explained Roger Williams spokeswoman Lynda Curtis.

Changes came to Amherst College in 2013, explained Laurie Frankl, who was hired that year as the school’s first-ever Title IX coordinator and full-time sexual respect educator.

Other policies at Amherst have changed. The schools has a new “outside hearing board process,” Frankl said.

“We made this change because students requested it," Frankl said. "They did not want adjudication of sexual misconduct allegations to include individuals whose classes they might be taking or whom they might see on campus. That change made a lot of sense, and we hope and expect that it will help to establish trust and encourage reporting.”

Frankl called the experiences that Bolger and others faced to when they tried to report their assaults “horrifying.”

They “disclosed a range of problems in the college’s previous efforts to prevent and respond to incidents of sexual misconduct and assault, and their bravery in doing so helped inspire a national movement to end sexual assault on college campuses.”

At UMass Dartmouth, students are learning about bystander intervention during the same orientation at which they learn about campus life and how to register for courses, Milstone said. The school has also hired a victims advocate.

Even at nonresidential college campuses, like Bristol Community College in Fall River, student safety and sexual violence are concerns, said Steve Ozug, the campus’s vice president of students and enrollment management. When those acts do occur to students, they often happen off campus. It was the topic of a recent statewide retreat for community college administrators.

It doesn’t meant the campus shouldn’t offer support for those students. It does, via counseling and health services, but is only able to take action if the perpetrator is another student, Ozug said.

'A burning issue'

Survivors like Bolger say they are encouraged by the policy changes but that those changes need to be accompanied by action, such as campus officials issuing no-contact orders against perpetrators.

Until recently, Bolger said she felt that colleges had not faced pressure to accurately report on-campus assaults.

“OCR has never once sanctioned a campus for sexual assault, and that is huge,” she said.

According to Bolger, another reason colleges have been reluctant to take action is because they have viewed campus sexual assaults as negative publicity depicting their campuses as unsafe. But telling survivors not to report is “sweeping the problem under the rug,” she said.

“When you go to a small school, you expect they are looking out for you, that student safety is above the safety of the school brand,” Bolger said. “Campuses need to stop seeing it as a PR problem. That results in survivor being ignored swept under the rug.”

College's violating the Clery Act by underreporting sexual assaults could face large fines, a maximum of $35,000 per incident.

In Dartmouth, Milstone called the changes “an incredibly positive thing.”

“For a lot of institutions, they were afraid of anything becoming public,” he said.

And challenges around addressing sexual assaults continue. At the same time that university officials are looking to protect victims’ rights, they are also “careful to not violate the rights of the accused.”

Milstone noted that the majority of sexual assaults are perpetrated by men, and a significant percentage of cases occur between victims and perpetrators who are acquainted. He explained the process of reporting.

“The first thing we do when we get a report, we let the person who’s accused know and put them on interim suspension status immediately so we can investigate,” Milstone said. “In most of the cases that have been brought forward, perpetrators have been found responsible and separated from campus. Research shows victims very seldom file a false claim. Why would somebody put themselves through that?

“Most of the regulations have been in place here for a long time,” Milstone said. “Part of our role is to create a safe campus conducive to academic success. So many campuses turned their back to it. ... The statistic has been known a long time, and it’s not getting any better."

“This is a burning issue,” said Col. Emil Fioravanti, who serves as UMass Dartmouth’s director of public safety. “And you want to do the right thing.

“I think what’s rapidly changing is the assumption that it’s a police matter. But it’s entirely up to the survivor. The school doesn’t get a vote in it. The boy doesn’t get a vote in it. So it’s up to colleges to provide options and let survivors know, 'You’re not alone. This shouldn’t have happened.'"